The Sunless Fleet

My father worked as an engineer at the Hadrian shipyards. How he met my mother and married into House Greymoor was without a doubt one of the great mysteries of the universe. I was told grandpa wasn’t happy until mother birthed a granddaughter in need of spoiling.

But thanks to father, and a childhood of seasonal trips to the docks, I cultivated a love for imperial warships that landed me at the Imperial Fleet Academy. Fast forward many years, and that’s how I knew, even without the adjutant’s warnings, that the hundreds of starships pouring out of subspace around me weren’t of Caerleon build.

The engineering philosophy of an imperial vessel was simple. Form over function. Visual flair over tactical convenience. It could be argued that the motto of the Caerleon military was that the only acceptable kind of victory was a stylish one.

Caerleon ships therefore, no matter the classification, featured a sleek, minimalist design language and uncompromising maneuverability. The fleet I saw arriving above the Trinity of Deceit, led by bulky capital ships carrying thousands of missile turrets and patchwork gauss cannons, carriers with oxidized hulls, oversized hangar bays wrought with fat anti-air cannons, looked nothing of Caerleon make.

What was more perplexing was the apparent age of the ships. While some sported spotless chrome plating that I had never seen before, many others looked ancient, with outdated frames that I hadn’t seen used in… centuries, if the history books I read were any indication.

But this degree of generational disparity amidst such a sizable fleet made it easy to identify the ships’ masters.

These ships belonged to pirates, raiders, the scourge of the imperial fringe, or its saviors, I suppose, depending on who you asked. To a member of the royal elite such as yours truly, however, few encounters could have sparked more fear.

But I found myself inspired by awe, not fear. It had been some time since I had witnessed a fleet of this scope, and right now, the sight of combat ships was a welcome reprieve from Caerleon vessels that could be repurposed for a gala or a royal party or a treacherous banquet on short notice.

And given the sheer number of ships, a name crossed my lips.

“The Sunless Fleet,” I mouthed.

Everyone at the Academy mythologized the achievements of the Sunless. It was hard not to if you heard the stories. The Sunless Fleet set themselves apart from ordinary pirates by accomplishing what couldn’t be done. They pilfered the armories of The Emerald Mausoleum without firing a single shot. They evaded capture by three separate imperial fleets who had them pincered at the Battle of Bree. To this day, Academy fleet instructors still taught the exquisite short burst subspace jumps that the Sunless used to outmaneuver Knight Captain Lionel’s Reapers.

But large groups scouring the edges of the Caerleon Imperium were not unheard of these days. Uncommon, sure, but not unheard of. The imperium withdrew from the rim after a series of disastrous defeats long ago. All manners of scum and villainy had, as a result, enjoyed the last few years scrubbing the graveyards of old battles clean without the imperial military breathing down their necks. Who knew how large the imperium’s enemies had grown, and who knew if they had any interest in amassing themselves at the border of the empire’s core worlds?

I scanned each of the ships around me, looking for a particular craft. It would look like an old frigate of unremarkable make and class. But the moment you laid eyes on it, you knew it was something special.

If this was the real Sunless Fleet, then the portrait of a pale woman would be etched upon the bow of this ship. The woman would be dressed in a thin blue robe, and a crown of white flowers rested upon her curly auburn hair. Her withered arms would lay outstretched, holding a goblet of gold; a lone deep sapphire tear trailed down her cheeks.

The Painted Lady. An uninspired name, to be sure, but that’s what we called her.

“Warning,” the adjutant interrupted my search. “Unidentified vessel on intercept course. Please take evasive action.”

I sighed.

“Adjutant,” I said, “Please describe to me the maneuvering capabilities of this vessel.”

“This is a prison capsule. Manual flying has been disabled. Remote access is temporarily restricted.”

“Right. And how many weapon systems exist onboard?”
“None. I repeat, this is a prison capsule.”

“That’s what I thought,” I snarled. “Please shut the fuck up.”

“Acknowledged. Disabling audio alerts. Transitioning to textual blinkers. Please refer to your command console.”

I switched my gaze to the direction of the incoming craft. At first, I didn’t know if I wanted to be spotted or not; rescue by space pirates wasn’t an appetizing thought. But prison capsules like mine often slipped detection from outdated telemetries that you might find on commandeered vessels. If I didn’t want to suffer… indignities at the hands of brigands, maybe it would be better for the ship to not notice and crush me under its weight.

Then I spotted The Painted Lady on the ship’s prow and I changed my mind.

It wasn’t every day that you came face to face with legend. The presence of The Painted Lady confirmed that this was in fact Circe, the flagship of the Sunless Fleet and home to the fleet’s figurehead and commander, the Pirate King.

The Painted Lady looked more colorful than I would have imagined given the tedious wear across other parts of the ship. A pair of scorch marks streaked across her arms. Those scars looked recent.

The command console beneath the window blinked. I tapped the dark display. Alert. Incoming vessel is decelerating, read the warning.

“Shit,” I muttered.

My only hope for a quick death now was that whoever manned the navigation station aboard misread my astro coordinates and slammed into me by accident. But Circe curved into perfect parallel motion with my capsule’s descending trajectory. I eyed the command console, which signaled that Circe’s velocity had decelerated to match the Trinity’s. That wasn’t an easy maneuver, even if an onboard artificial intelligence was aboard to assist. Whoever was navigating for these pirates knew what they were doing.

Circe slid ahead of my capsule and showed off the empty hangar bay lounging on its starboard side. A gentle green light washed over my prison. The Trinity lurched, as if her body had been snatched by a large metal hook. Circe’s gravitational lift stabilized my ship and pulled it into the hangar. I spotted people outside my window, and I felt a tinge of dread.

The Academy often stressed the importance of not yielding important resources to the enemy. I wondered if I, Elaine Greymoor, ex-fiance to Prince Arthur Pendragon, son of His Majesty, Uther Pendragon, King of Caerleon and its thousands year imperium, may the imperial stars dull like the eyes of a slaughtered animal, and all the rest of it, constituted a valuable resource to the imperium. Would these pirates enjoy a hefty prize if I were to be put up for ransom?

Imagine Arthur paying. Hah!

Of course, “the importance of not yielding important resources to the enemy,” was, like many things in the academy, a euphemism. It conveyed the open secret that our instructors sanitized for their own convenience, that death by our own hands was preferable to torture at the hands of those who hated us. This applied to us royals in particular.

A trio of thumps pounded against the capsule’s locked doors. No one on the other side of the door said a word. Almost by instinct, I relived my Academy lessons and eyed my surroundings. What were the most efficient ways to end my life before the pirates set themselves upon me? Crush my head against the command console?

But I forced myself to stop thinking about death. What was this? Was this it? Were these the only choices afforded to Elaine Greymoor, ex-fiance to… that’s enough of that, to me? Death upon a prison world. Death at the hand of pirates. Death by my own hand. Death, death, death, death, death. Memento mori? Maybe mementogofuckyourself.

This wouldn’t be how I would go, not cornered like vermin. I refused.

The knocking on my door resumed. The panes on the Trinity were one-sided, so the pirates didn’t bother trying to look in. But I looked and gazed sideways at the people outside. They seemed… normal enough. They looked like engineers or mechanics with their rough fitted overalls, sweaty bandanas, bruised cheeks, and crooked noses.

“Anyone in there?” asked the young boy knocking on the door, “Is everything okay in there?”

“What are you doing?” asked an older man next to the boy. “The thermals literally showed someone inside.”

“It’s formality,” said the boy. “What, you wanna scare them to death?”

“Who do you think gets put in these prison capsules, buddy? Little princesses who suck on mommy’s thumb? No, it’s criminals that the imperials throw into the rim. People like us.”

“You ain’t so bad, Jeffries. Come to think of it, I ain’t so bad either. And if this person’s so bad, then why capitan bring them aboard, huh?”

“You keep your head down and stop asking questions if you want to keep that head. Security’s coming. Now get away from the door and–”

I had no intention of letting either of these dolts step away. I unbolted the hinges locking the capsule door in place and swung it open. The door knocked the boy backwards. He looked young, maybe a few years behind me. I grabbed him dazed by the collar and thrust him inside the capsule.

The older gentleman lunged at me, but he threw himself with the accuracy of a blind man. I sidestepped and snagged him by his leather overalls. He gagged as his uniform collar choked his throat. He was heavier than the boy, so I flung him with two arms into the Trinity. His body tumbled into the boy and the two of them rolled into the command console. I leapt back into the capsule, locked the door hinges, and stood over my two captives.

“I don’t have time so I’m going to be brief,” I said. “You’re both mechanics in the hangar, yes? This ship has locked manual flight control and its Lemmings-Hyder subspace drive. Remove them. Now.”

“Now wait just a minute–”

I stamped my foot on the older man’s throat.

“I’m not a princess sucking on her mommy’s thumb,” I snarled, “and your security detail is probably on the other end of the hangar bay by now. You. Kid. Get to work.”

“Now who you calling–”

I sunk my heels deeper.

“You want to keep bickering until I crush his throat, kid?” I asked, “or are you going to wake the fuck up and figure out what situation you’re in?”

The boy scrambled out from beneath the older man and pulled open the compartment beneath the command console. His fingers glided through a forest of electrical coils to reach a panel at the back of the console. I released the pressure on the older man.

“You,” I said. “Get the subspace engine back online.”

“It’s pointless,” croaked the man called Jeffries. “You can’t access the Lemmings-Hyder drive from inside a capsule model like this one.”

“Oh yes you can. Here,” I stomped my foot on one of the floor panels in the middle of the vessel. It bent open. “You can crawl through the heat layering here and into the exhaust pipes below. They should be wide enough for you to reach the drive.”

The man’s eyes widened.

“...You’re insane.”

“What’s the issue? I thought you said it couldn’t be done?”

“If the boy primes the engine, I’m completely fried.”

“And how is that my problem exactly?” I shrugged. “It just sounds like you need to be quick then, or do you prefer raw death over being cooked?”

“Don’t do it Jeffries!” shouted the kid behind me. I turned to see him holding a batch of severed wires in his hands. “Ship’s grounded. She can’t take off even if she wants to now.”

The terrified look in the older man’s eyes told the boy everything he needed to know about his rash decision.

“That was a bad move, kid,” I glowered. “You’ll regret that.”

But the kid was lucky, or maybe my escape was never meant to be, or maybe he was brighter than I gave him credit for. In my rush to escape, I hadn’t focused any attention outside during the scuffle. I hadn’t heard the boots massing outside the capsule doors or the beeping of primed explosives.

The capsule door burst open and I was knocked off my feet. A flood of lights and the shock overwhelmed my senses. My training meant nothing anymore. My vision flashed white. I covered my face, but my ears kept ringing. Bits of shrapnel grazed my hands and legs. A pair of arms tackled me into the ground.

When I opened my eyes, I stared down the barrels of a half dozen guns handled by officers in protective gear. For the second time that day, I felt like my view of the universe had been obscured by round foreboding caverns.